Dragon Monitors
by Eppoif1
Summary: "I said stay by the rock! But NO, I come back and find you not by the ROCK, but running away from a 70 foot tall DRAGON!" Had she not been running for her life, Azula might have firebended at him. The dragon belched out a monstrous white fireball, it flying past just over their heads. Sokka just ran faster trying to run away from both the dragon's flame, and the impending tirade.
1. Sokka the Egghead

An angry dragon's roar bounced of the canyon walls, and at the moment he couldn't decide which frightened him more: the dragon, or his partner, who was giving him quite the piercing glare right about now. Her golden eyes were ablaze with fury, he was just glad it wasn't her hands.

They were crouched behind a boulder for cover from the infuriated reptile, they had just barely made it out of range of the dragon's firebreath. Knowing they were going to have to go back out soon, they were both gearing up for a possible and very likely attack. Him checking his boomerang, and sharpening his sword; her, well she had her own means of defense.

"Five." she said. "Five minutes, and you've gone and upset the nest of the most dangerous animal on the planet! Sokka, you idiot!" She finished with a heavy heated punch to her partner's arm. Singeing his shirt sleeve in the process.

Rubbing his arm, Sokka gritted his teeth and fired back at her, "What was I supposed to do, Azula? Leave it there? The shell was already cold, and if I hadn't put it back it would've died!"

Azula scoffed, "Great, the egg's safe, but the mother is going to kill us."

The man flailed his arms about, "How was I supposed to know the dragon thought I was trying to steal it?"

Azula turned away and sighed, "Never mind."

She stood up, glaring at the oaf wasn't going to get either of them anywhere. The dragon roared again, it sounded closer this time. She tsked pulling her hair back into a long low sitting ponytail, with two chin length bangs still loose, one hanging off the right and one hanging off the left. "Since you're obviously not smart enough to do anything. I'm going to figure out a way to deter this thing from coming after us. Besides, if the mother doesn't go back to her eggs soon she'll lose them."

Azula moved to step from behind the boulder, but Sokka, still sitting, reached up and grabbed her arm to stop her. "You're not going to kill it, are you?" He asked sincerely.

_'Did I not just say...' _Azula stared down at him frowning. "Says the man sharpening his sword, of course I'm not going to kill it."

Her arm heated up like a sheet of metal left outside in the sun on a hot day, burning Sokka's hand a slight. The fool let go and waved the appendage around, blowing at it quite unnecessarily.

Azula rolled her eyes then dragged the Water Tribesman up by his burnt hand, the pain making him to wince. "Grab your weapons and let's go." she snarled.

Sokka gulped, putting his sword and boomerang back in their respective sheaths, then followed Azula out from behind the boulder; the dragon no more than 100 meters away, waiting for them.

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**A/N: The idea of Sokka and Azula working together on anything was intriguing, and so I thought of this! I had thought of them both being in their 20s, so Azula would be 25 and Sokka would be 26, if I got the age gap right, if not Sokka's 27(it has to be either 26 or 27, I'm sure). ****Since the Sky Bison population still existed, and had to probably be nursed back to a healthy populace, I thought about the same thing probably happening with dragons! But in this case, they're left up to their own with people coming in to observe every now and then from a distance, and that's where Azula and Sokka come in! This might be a short-ish story, I'll have to see where exactly I'm going to take it. Anyway, enough from me what do you think? Reviews/Critiques are appreciated. I hope you enjoyed so far, and I'll see you in the next chapter!**


	2. Following the Leader

_'I really hate this job...'_ Sokka groaned as a humongous green fireball hurtled through the sky, heading straight for him...

One and a half hours earlier:

When they had stepped out into the open. The dragon wasn't exactly waiting for the princess and warrior. It was more like sniffing at the ground, and accidentally had caught sight of the duo.

"If we had just stayed put behind the boulder we might not have had to deal with it probably." Sokka muttered bitterly.

"If you'd stayed put in the first place we wouldn't have had to deal with the dragon at all...!" Azula refrained from commenting on how lousy a hunter the man was if he didn't realize the dragon had been tracking them; instead choosing to take stock of their lofty opponent.

The animal had orange scales coloring its head and the back of its wings fading into a lime-ish sort of yellow fading again into a grassy green, it was terrifyingly beautiful, but strange. It wasn't serpentine like most dragons, it was stocky looking and walked on two legs.

_'A result of breeding with another species, perhaps.'_ Azula thought as she looked the beast over. _'A big middle, probably to hold a large flame sack, wings long and narrow... Wonderful, so it can shoot a lot of fire, and it can most likely fly for long periods of time. This is going to be rather troublesome isn't it? Great job, Sokka.'_ She shot the man a look, communicating that she was going to kill him when this was over-_'If the thing doesn't kill us both first...'_ -, but Sokka didn't seem to notice, he was focused on the dragon.

Neither party moved, Sokka had a hand ready on the hilt of his sword. He glanced down at Azula, she wasn't firebending yet, he thought this odd, but didn't say anything. They all stood there like that for a few tense minutes before Azula took off towards the dragon, no firebending what so ever.

Sokka stood there dumbfounded, eyes wide open, mouth agape, his non- wielding hand even poised in the air.

_'She's mental!'_ Sokka shook himself, and ran after her; sword now out of sheath, though he couldn't run as fast. "Wait Azula, what are doing?!" he called after her.

Azula didn't say anything or show any signs she even heard the warrior, she just continued on towards the dragon. The dragon hadn't moved yet, but it was scraping it feet across the ground, reminding Sokka of a Tiger-Bull about to charge.

"Azula!" Sokka called out to the Fire Princess again. She still didn't either hear him, or was ignoring him.

Sokka was rapidly falling behind, the dragon bowed its head and bared it's teeth. It let out a grim gurgling growl.

Sokka didn't know much about dragons but he did know what that sound meant.

_'It's getting ready to breathe fire...'_ Sokka stopped, horrified. Azula at this point wouldn't be able to get out of range in time unless she turned. "Azula, go left! She's about to blow a fire ball, go left!" Sokka had dropped his sword, in favor of waving his arms about.

Azula had heard him the entire time, she turned her head back slightly to see Sokka had dropped his sword. _'Fool.'_ Her eyelids lowered at his display. "Buffoon, pick up your sword!"

"Azula!" Sokka shouted, but Azula just kept running. The dragon opened its mouth, a white fireball with streaks of yellow launched from it. Heading straight for the woman, garbed in red cloth, and black armor.

Azula jumped up kicking forward wall of blue fire heading for the dragon's fireball. She landed watching the mother dragon's flame dissipate as her own continued forth. The dragon grunted what could be called something of confusion right before Azula's fire column hit lashing it across the head near the left eye.

**"AAAAANGHHRRRR!" **The dragon drew itself up to full height, letting out an anguished cry. Even on the dragon's supposed flame retardant scales the burn looked bad.

Sokka caught up to Azula, he thankfully had picked up his sword to Azula's relief. The sword master was in a sorry state, out of breath and sweating heavily, and hair a little mussed, several strands loose from his wolf tail hanging in front of his forehead. Between running from the dragon earlier, and trying to keep up with Azula now, Sokka was worn. The man's exhaustion wasn't the only thing contributing to his red face though.

He turned on Azula, "The heck were you thinking?!" Sokka yelled, chest still heaving, his sword clenched tightly in his hand.

Azula looked up at her partner, his eyes a cutting icy blue. She had half a mind to smack the look he was giving her off his face, but chose to quirk an eyebrow instead, "What?"

For a moment Sokka looked like he was about to use his sword on her, but Azula knew he wouldn't do that.

"Youuu...! Forget it!" Sokka was too out of breath to point out how stupid the stunt the princess had just pulled was, firebending master or not.

The dragon stopped roaring from the pain, and immediately charged. Sokka just barely jumped out of the way as the dragon crashed her head into the ground sideways right side up in a failed attempt to swallow the two. Azula had jumped upwards, and was now airborne keeping herself afloat on a small platform of blue flames. She shot out two jets of fire hitting the dragon's head on the upturned side.

The dragon snapped an eye up to Azula, and let out another gurgling growl.

Azula called down to Sokka, who was still scrambling to get away from the dragon's head, the crash had made quite a large ditch. "Stay there, I'm going to lead it towards the nest!" Azula made sure the mother was looking at her, and flew onwards towards the dragon's nest sitting a little further north.

"Azula-WHAT?!" Sokka had just gotten to the top of the ditch the reptile's head had made when Azula had yelled to him what she was going to do. Before he knew it, Azula had flown off and the beast was struggling to pick its head from the ground. The reptile opened a wing, flapping it to restore balance, so it could stand. Once up, it opened the other wing and began lifting off the ground.

_'Spirits!'_ Sokka felt around for his waist pack, finding it he made quick work of grabbing a roll of rope. The dragon was getting up higher now, its feet had already left the ground. _'I need to do this quickly!'_ Sokka tied the fastest knot he could surrounding the hilt of his sword. After giving it a good tug, he took it and hurled it at the dragon like a harpoon. The sword sailed through the air and lodged itself in the reptile's lower back, but she seemed unaffected.

_'That skin must be tough.'_ Sokka thought to himself, as he tied the end of the rope around his waist in a double knot.

It wasn't long before the dragon had taken off completely, lurching Sokka forward and upward into the air along with it, following after the speck of bright blue in the distance.

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**A/N: Hooray for second chapters! I'm still struggling to get the feel for Sokka's and Azula's characters so if they seem a little OOC, or a lot OOC, forgive me. Anyway, so what do you think? If you guys want to give me pointers on either of their personalities to make it more authentic that'd be great, I'm all ears. **

**Critiques/Reviews are appreciated, so if you have something to say leave one, and I'll see you all in the next chapter. Bye!**


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